I can’t say it any better, and no point in re-inventing the wheel, so I’m reposting this with credit:

For MBA students who decided to go to business school over the past five years, it’s been an amazing time, rich with career opportunities and increasingly handsome pay. If anything, the value of the MBA itself has been confirmed again and again as one of the very few degrees that brings an immediate payoff.

For the Class of 2014, starting pay packages and job placement rates are at either record or near-record levels. Indeed, at some of the super elite schools, the job offer rates may seem somewhat lower than a casual observer might expect. It’s only because the MBA job market has become so frothy that graduates of a handful of very prestigious schools have become ever more choosy and are holding out for the perfect opportunity, highly confident it will come.

Starting salaries of $110,000 to $125,000 are now the median at 16 top U.S. schools, ranging from Harvard where the median was $125,000 to the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business where the median was $110,000. Median sign-on bonuses–now given to the vast majority of MBA graduates from top schools–are $25,000. And all these numbers tend to be highly conservative because they do not include increasingly common year-end bonuses, tuition reimbursement, stock grants and relocation expenses. The graduates of several top European schools, including such key players as London Business School, INSEAD and IESE Business School in Spain, are also in that upper range.

Most importantly, the placement rates at these schools are virtually near full employment, a massive turnaround from the numbers posted in the depth of the recession in 2009 and 2010. Last year, a remarkable 98% of the MBAs from Emory, Wharton and Chicago had job offers three months after graduation. None of the top schools had placement rates below 90% at the three-month mark.

At Emory’s Goizueta Business School, where its job offer rate at graduation was higher than any other MBA program at 90.4% and equal to the very best rate of 98%, it was a landmark year. “2014 was a very strong year for the MBA job market and Goizueta,” says Wendy Tsung, associate dean of MBA Career Services at Goizueta. “Last year, our top hiring partners extended more offers on campus and we also saw a 15% increase in new companies recruiting on campus. 2015 has been just as strong, especially in consulting and financial services. This is a good time to be graduating from an MBA program.”

Another telling statistic about the demand for MBAs: The starting pay packages being landed at such schools at the University of Texas’ McCombs School and Vanderbilt University’s Owen School are nearly as much as those at the highest ranked elite schools. McCombs grads reported starting salaries of $105,000 this year, while Owen MBAs hit the $100,000 mark. That’s just $20,000 or $25,000 lower than the $125,000 commanded by Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton MBAs. If you adjusted those numbers to account for pay and cost of living in the wider markets of Austin and Nashville and again for industry choices, the difference in MBA starting pay would be negligible.

For graduates of the Class of 2015, it looks only to get better and in all likelihood could be the single best year in history to graduate with an MBA. In fact, the latest research is suggesting that the demand for MBA talent is so great that major corporate recruiters are now reaching deeper into the pool at second tier schools ranked between 20 and 100. Another sign of good fortune is that the most significant increase in recruiting is coming from financial services, a sector that is likely to boost overall salaries and bonuses as it competes more aggressively for the best grads at top schools.

This recent release of the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance survey found that 64% of the responding schools have seen increased recruiting for full-time jobs, up 23% over last fall. And more than three-quarters reported an increase in full-time job postings. At B-schools ranked from 21 to 50, the increases in on-campus recruiting were nothing but massive, with 81% reporting increases. That compares with 57% of schools ranked from 1 to 20 reporting increases, while 67% of those ranked 51 to 100 reported increases.

“2014 was a very strong year for MBA employment and the increases noted by the majority of participating schools suggest that the 2015 results will be even better,” says Damian Zikakis, director of career services at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. It’s highly possible that this year will be the best year to ever graduate with an MBA degree, even better than the 1980s and 1990s when business school education had its biggest gains.

While there can never be a 100% guarantee of placement in the job a graduate most wants, it’s just about as close as it can get to that ideal. “Placement in our tradition MBA program is probably as robust as ever, with over 95% of the graduates reporting employment success within 90 days of graduation at the top 10 schools,” says Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. “And the total pay packages are exceeding pre-crash levels.”

Average starting salaries at Danos’ school hit $117,860 last year, up 2.5% from $115,031 a year earlier. Average signing bonuses–reported by 87% of the class–were $28,712, while other guaranteed compensation averaged $34,431. For a graduating student who collected all three forms of compensation, the average would have totaled a whopping $181,003–to start.

Abraham Maslow created a 5-level theory of human motivation (Psychology Review, 1943) in which he proposed that human needs and satisfaction levels move upwards according to a “hierarchy” of needs. When lower needs such as sustenance and safety are met, we aspire to fulfill social, self-esteem, and self-actualization needs. The chart looks like this:

credit: Wikipedia

(The structure of the pyramid itself has been tinkered with over time, for example by Manfred Max-Neef, who sees levels of subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, freedom.) But the core insight remains: once basic levels of fulfillment are achieved, and as long as they remain achieved, we move up the hierarchy in search of broader fulfillment.

What does this have to do with MBA admissions essays, and how does this help those struggling with the MBA admissions goals essay question in particular?

It helps because it provides a quick, reliable guide to the necessary reach of the essay. Too often applicants deal only at levels 2 and 3, talking of security and quality of employment, taking care of family (including elderly or immigrant parents) and developing friendship and contact networks, career progress, and so on.

This is all important. But there is more to say, and Maslow shows the way to it. The rest of your motivation statement should be rooted in levels 4 and 5: how the MBA will take you activities that create self-respect, and the respect of others, what you will create, or solve or build, and why this will be self-actualizing at the highest level.

As I tell my clients: a good career and family security are great things to want, but what comes after that? You don’t need to aspire to save the world, but you do need to reach into yourself and ask: “levels 4 and 5 — what are they for me? What would actualizing myself at these levels look like? And how will an MBA be part of the route that gets me there?”

In my book MBA Admissions Strategy I offer the following advice: “Proofread to show your hunger” (that is, hunger for MBA admission, a real desire to be selected.)

Typographic or other careless errors in your text immediately clues Adcom in as to how (un)careful you were with your text, and this tells them not only how organized and detail-oriented you are but also how much you actually really care about your application to their particular school.

It also tells them whether you are a closer and finisher who nails things exactly, or a “glancing-blow” kind of guy.

In this sense MBA admissions works just like a resume you send out for a job. If there’s one error in it, eyebrows will be raised. Two errors and you’ve written yourself out of a job.

The longstanding ‘pet peeve’ across all Adcom readers is that the wrong school name often appears in the text. That is, Stanford GSB Adcom gets essays that say: “I would contribute to the peer learning environment at Wharton by …” Ouch.

The spellchecker will help you a bit, but is not foolproof. It will happily let you say your first mentor was your high school principle. It will not replace Booth with Tuck. Nor does it know that Haas is a business school while Hass is an avocado.

The tricky thing is that you, the essay-writing applicant, will battle to proofread your own work. Obvious errors will slip by undetected because your eyes will be focused (rightly) on content and message value delivery.

The MBA Admissions Studio does not offer a proofing service either, for the same reason. Proofreading should be done by someone who is seeing the essays for the first time, and who is tasked specifically with looking for errors, not reading for content or value.

This is an oldie from the files, but as true now as it ever was, showing how it’s important to pay close attention when Adcoms give tips because they do tell applicants everything they need to know.

Below are extracts from an interview with Dee Leopold Executive Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard Business School, published at the time in the Boston Globe. It’s low on the usual blah, and high on real guideposts for meeting Adcom’s expectations and beating out other applicants — and everything here is true of other elite b-schools.

The key points:

1. Guiding selection principle is: leaders who will make a difference in the world. Now this could be a platitude, but it’s not. They really mean it. It can be any difference, but it must be some difference. If you’re just going to be another banker or another consultant or another PE portfolio manager, or even just another venture capitalist or entrepreneur, that’s not making a difference in the world. You can be any of these things, or something else, but how will you leave a different world behind you?

2. Qualities sought are: curiosity, initiative, sense of purpose, energy, self-awareness, a real sense of others, an ability to engage in a community, a moral compass, ‘givers’ rather than ‘takers,’ not bystanders but active participants. This is not a full list, but it’s a great starting point for an application platform.

3. Transformational experience of the (HBS) MBA, and who appears receptive to it. As Leopold says: ‘Do you want to possibly have your plan completely turned around, find out things that you didn’t even know were possibilities for you?’ (This is why the HBS goals essay is optional, because they want to significantly expand your horizons!) If you are not ready for transformation they don’t want you.

4. The case method, and knowing what it actually, specifically offers. As Leopold explains: ‘Leaders operate in gray areas… (the case method is) developing the judgment to know which tool to use when, to be comfortable in uncertainty, to be able to make decisions day in and day out with imperfect information, not enough information, never enough time.’

5. Endorsement for MBA admissions consulting, recognizing that (a) executives and all of us use consultants widely in and throughout our lives and careers — it’s part of being fully actualized and competitive in our society; and (b) many candidates are unfamiliar with b-school culture, therefore disadvantaged when applying, and they can legitimately overcome this. (And she says: ‘there is no such thing as a reputable consultant who will write business school applications,’ which of course MBA Studio and other reputable advisors do not do.)

Here is the extracted interview text:

What does HBS look for in its candidates?

Our mission is to educate leaders who will make a difference in the world. So we’re driving back to that guiding principle. We’re looking to compose a class of talented leaders who come from many different backgrounds but share some common qualities. And those qualities might include curiosity, initiative, sense of purpose, energy, self-awareness, a real sense of others, and an ability to engage in a community, and a moral compass that points true north.

What kind of candidates do you actively avoid?

Think of the qualities I described, and think of their opposite. We want people who can come here and believe that they are as invested in their classmates’ learning as they are in their own. We’re looking for people who, over the whole course of their lives, have been givers versus takers, who are not bystanders but active participants.

Some applicants hire admissions consultants to try to game the system. Can you detect an application that’s written by an admissions consultant?

The written application is only one part of our process. We start with a written application, but we interview every applicant who is ultimately admitted. So we are not reliant only on a written application. I think we’re in a culture now where consultants are hired to do a lot of different things. We understand that some people – particularly those who do not work with people who have gone to business school, who do not have expertise in this admission process – we understand that seeking out advice is natural. But there is no such thing as a reputable consultant who will write business school applications.

If a young executive is already on the corporate fast track, do you recommend that he or she come to Harvard Business School?

If they’re thinking about Harvard Business School, which is truly a transformational experience, I’d ask that person: Do you want to be open to that change? Do you want to find out different ways of doing things? Do you want to possibly have your plan completely turned around, find out things that you didn’t even know were possibilities for you?

What do students learn at Harvard Business School that they can’t learn at a Wharton or a Stanford?

I’m only speaking from a point of expertise about Harvard. It’s where I went to school, so I’m speaking as an alum and also as an admissions director. The case method, which is our pedagogy, is truly distinctive. We’re educating leaders to be effective. Leaders operate in gray areas. It’s not about the specific analytical tools you have in some imaginary toolbox. It’s developing the judgment to know which tool to use when, to be comfortable in uncertainty, to be able to make decisions day in and day out with imperfect information, not enough information, never enough time, and to be able to take a stand and to be able to communicate it to others and to bring people along with you.

One of the problems I have as an MBA admissions adviser–friend, coach, confidant, drill sergeant–to applicants trying to crack top-tier schools is explaining that while “good is nice and great is nicer” neither will get you into a top-tier MBA program. Only “good + special” will get you in.

Everyone knows that there are far fewer places than excellent candidates, but not everyone understands the implication of this, which is that the standard “good” profile application is more likely to fail than succeed. I do ding analyses: often there is something clear to point to, but often there is not. I’m left saying “there was no juice,” and I don’t mean this as a cop-out.

What I mean is–putting it another way–the applicant has provided reasons for Adcom not to reject them, covering all bases, saying the right things, but has not given Adcom a compelling reason to say yes.

Easier said than done. What if there is no specialness (distinctiveness) there? “I haven’t done anything that special,” they will say. “I have not won Olympic medals; never hot-air ballooned over the Atlantic; not pulled anyone from a burning car …”

I won’t kid you, it’s great if you’ve done something memorable like this. But there are two types of specialness. Specialness of what you have achieved AND specialness of who you are. Not everyone has the first type in their bag, but everyone can have the second.

Here are examples of the second type:

1. Distinctiveness of insight, self-reflection, and self-understanding. Unfortunately (but fortunately for you, dear reader) it appears these days that it takes a special person to be willing to reflect on their life path, their roles, their identity, their motivations. But this is exactly what Adcom wants of you. That’s why they ask complex, motivational questions. The quality of genuine self-reflection is so unique among 20-something-year-olds (and so highly correlated with real leadership ability) that if you can do it right, you’ll be special just for this.

Note: doing it right means being open and honest, but also circumspect, professional, to-the-point, and focused on the essay question, using practical examples and stories. It does not mean wallowing self-indulgently as if for your local Agony Aunt magazine column.

2. Distinctiveness of communication. Writing and (in the interview) speaking is the basis of your interaction with Adcom. Words are your tools. You do not need to be a fancy creative-writing major to write a wonderful MBA admissions essay, but there are basic tools of storytelling and essay building that make a piece of text stand out. Be aware how much turgid, repetitive prose your Adcom reader has to wade through. Getting your point across in a bright, clear, and organized way will make you stand out. (Much more about the how of this is in my MBA Admissions Strategy book.)

3. Distinctiveness of direction and goals. You can’t change your past. You should present it in the best light, but for better or worse, it is set. Your future is ahead of you. It can be anything–you can make any claim, within reason. It is a “free hit ” in the sense that you are pretty much invited to distinguish yourself from the crowd through the extent of your ambition, and the relevance, interest, and worthiness of your career path.

“How strictly do I have to stick to the essay word limit? How much can I go over? Does it matter if I’m under?” is a question I get a lot from clients and people who pop up on email.

To answer this, it’s essential, as always, to think about any process or task or limit in admissions from AdCom’s point of view. Put yourself in their shoes. Why do they ask for it? What are they trying to achieve? How does it help them?

So, what is AdCom trying to do with word limits? First, if there were no limits applicants would ask incessantly: “Please Miss, how long must it be?” Second, some applicants would write the great American novel, which would waste their time and the Committee’s. Third, limits provide a way of getting essays from different applicants to be more directly comparable, being the same length.

But there is play in the system. The purpose of the essays is to get to know the applicant via their writing, and everyone knows that writing is a creative process and certainly nobody expects you to hit the word count on the nail. This is not engineering or accounting. (Believe it or not, some clients fuss the word count until they have exactly the number asked for, taking touching comfort in a detail that will provide them absolutely no refuge.) Anyway, application forms often talk about a word “guide” rather than word “limit.” So you can clearly go a bit over, but by how much?

My advice to clients is not to go more than +5% in any essay. This kind of margin is a natural “rounding error” in finishing up what you have to say and will not hurt you if your reader is a reasonable person, which we assume she is. More than this will start to look like you are taking advantage and/or asking for an indulgence that your competitors are not getting.

However if you write a number of essays that are noticeably short it is fine to have one or two that are commensurately longer, so that the whole comes out more or less right.

Can you go under the limit? Similarly, I advise clients not to go less than -5% on any essay. In one sense, like all professional communicators, I believe strongly in “say what you have to say; say it once, strongly and clearly and then stop talking.” This is the royal road to more powerful communications. Certainly there’s no merit in padding, wafffling, and repeating yourself.

But admissions essays are relatively short pieces of writing, and you — if you merit a place at a top b-school — are a multifaceted, talented individual with an valuable track record, and if you can’t find things to say to take up the word count this in itself flags that you have not been able to (or haven’t bothered to) properly investigate your own motivations or fully argue your merits.

Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s best-seller Thinking Fast and Slow (Farrar, 2011) documents how decision-makers arrive at decisions, either instantly without a lot of mental hard work — “fast thinking” or by “slow thinking” which means full analytical process.

Fast thinking is going on when you have a “first impression” of someone, and of course when an MBA Adcom member forms a first impression of you.

On a similar theme, Blink (Little, Brown & Co, 2005) by Malcolm Gladwell, makes a further claim — that instant judgments oftentimes produce better, more accurate, conclusions than those made by way of exhaustive analysis.

Whether “blinking” provides a better basis for decision-making than formal analysis or not, the point is fast thinking and slow thinking are both at play decision-making, whether the decision-maker is aware of it or not.

The implication for MBA admissions is that, while b-school Adcoms everywhere would assert that they rigorously analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each applicant, there is also considerable “fast thinking” involved in how they choose.

Note that Adcom essay readers and committee members are not seeking to make an “impressionistic” judgment. In fact the opposite is true. But they will be picking up impressions at every turn. After all, they have to make a big call, fairly quickly, about a complex situation (you and your future prospects) and they don’t actually have that much analytical material to go on.

Fast thinking is the way the MBA admissions committee will get its working impression of your personality, motivation, determination, charisma, team orientation, and overall prospects, all of which will precede and then run in parallel with their more formal analysis.

Before Adcom even gets to fully considering your grades and scores, performance metrics, and work history, they will have formed an impression from the first things they see. It’s hard to know what they will see first of course, but very often it will be the file data and/or resume.

An impression will form almost immediately and build through the course of considering your application, as they continue to absorb first impressions about each part of it–the essays, particularly their erudition and tone; the tone and warmth of recommendations and interview report, and so on. (The interview itself is of course another first-impression decision situation.)

Managing fast thinking:

The best way to deal with fast thinking is to realize it is there, and always will be, and provide ways for admissions officers to use this mode in judging you.
• Expecting snap judgments about your motivation, take care that everything you submit is carefully checked and complete.
• Expecting snap judgments about your pre-MBA work experience, take care to get the highlights high up in the essay.
• Expecting snap judgments about your professionalism, take care that any correspondence you enter into (by phone or email) is scrupulously professional, and so on.
Play to the first-impression mode first, and follow this with data and detail that corroborates the impression.

The context is business schools are asking fewer essay questions in total, often swapping text questions for multimedia input. Part of the reason b-school adcoms are asking for fewer questions is they don’t get what they want from the answers.

What they very often get is a generic “promo-style” answer from the applicant, telling the admissions committee what they think the committee wants to hear.

If an essay prompt results in thousands of formulaic responses it will be pulled, as year-on-year Adcoms sit down to refine their questions based on the quality of answers they got the previous year.

There’s a lot MBA applicants can learn from knowing what Adcom’s task themselves to achieve (or more specifically, what they try to avoid) in composing a good question.

Liz Riley Hargrove, Associate Dean for admissions at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, tells Business Week how admissions officers pass boardroom hours lobbing edits back and forth to craft the perfect question.

They answer each other’s questions. If Adcom members themselves answer the question generically, it’s back to the drawing board.

What they don’t want is your elegantly varnished cookie-cutter answer that takes no risks. What they do want is an authentic expression of self, something that reveals a piece of who you really are and what shaped you.

Taking risks doesn’t mean you can make mistakes in grammar or tone or style, or you can discuss inappropriate topics or waste words capturing little admissions value. That’s taking a bad risk.

It does mean you can be yourself. Really, truly. Being who you really are, and saying what your really want is a good risk.

How can you “be yourself?” By saying things about you that are honest and self-revealing, that are specific in time and place and unique only to you. This is the way to achieve an authentic voice and intimate tone into your communications.

If what you say could just as easily be in the next applicant’s essay, you’ve failed an important test in MBA admissions essay writing.

HBS has a long-standing video on its site: “Inside the Case Method,” talking about “decisive moments that shape a Harvard Business School education.”

It’s a promo for the HBS MBA of course, highlighting its main point of distinction: the case method, which, according to HBS creates “special moments that pull everything we have learned into focus. When theory, practice, experience and talent all come to one sharp point — a decision.” And so on.

For the Harvard MBA admissions applicant this is a worthwhile watch for a few reasons:

1. It is good insight into how b-schools work and think, that is, background on the culture and attitudes at play, including overall assumptions and ethics. This point to what is expected of the next class too, and therefore what HBS Adcom is looking for when it accepts or rejects.

2. It is a view into the dynamics of the business school classroom, and the requirements of individual and group-based learning. The MBA applicant well-positioned to work in this way, is well positioned to be admitted.

3. It is exposure to the case method of teaching. HBS is “ground zero” of the case method, but actually almost every school uses cases to a significant degree, so it is useful for understanding all b-school pedagogy, and therefore what makes sense to say to enhance admissions prospects.

Footnote: the case method has been under some scrutiny, and voices have been raised that Harvard did not adequately prepare its graduates to assess risk / business failure (ref the 2008 recession and fallout). See sample stories in Forbes and Bloomberg News. But, to me it doesn’t look like HBS or the case method was more at fault than any other elite school or any other teaching approach was (or wasn’t).

It’s early in the MBA admissions season and many of you will be working towards a GMAT score as a first step on your admissions path.

So I thought time to dig this story out of the archives — about a utility from GMAC, purveyors of the GMAT, which allows test-takers to rate their score (or practice shores) with reference to their cohort, filtered by intended degree, age, gender, country, and so on.

If you try it you will be able to see how you stack up against the sub-group you are really competing against.

You may also take heart that the median is much lower than you think. True, this doesn’t help “GMAT paranoia” when you look at your elite school and find it has an average accepted GMAT of 720 and your score is 680.

For that you need to absorb what b-schools keep telling us — once again here in a recent WSJ interview with Derrick Bolton Director of MBA Admissions at Stanford GSB — which is that the GMAT is only one among many factors that determine admission.

WSJ: “Do you check out the GMAT score and if it’s below a certain number, put that application aside?”

Bolton: “That would rob us of a lot of talent. The GMAT is helpful in terms of understanding how someone can perform in the first year, but that’s one small piece of the overall M.B.A.”

What would be nice, for the next iteration of this GMAC utility, would be the ability to check a box that shows the GMAT arc of accepted students at Stanford, or Harvard, or Tuck, etc. That arc would by definition show the 50% below the incoming median score, and how low incoming scores can be, and that would be reassuring to the many hundreds of applicants who will get into elite schools despite not being “GMAT geniuses.”

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Client Feedback

The MBA Admissions Studio has hundreds of satisfied clients. Below are some samples of applicant feedback. These are 100% genuine reports, exactly as written by clients. The MBA Admissions Studio stands ready to demonstrate the veracity of these comments, and the schools' acceptances, if required.

Applicant:
"Thank you so much for all your help through the application process! I appreciated your honesty when an essay topic was not resonating and your ability to coax a better, more detailed story, out of me. It has all paid off, I have been admitted to Wharton, MIT, Kellogg and Duke (Columbia is still pending)!!! I am incredibly thrilled and humbled by all of this. Now I have a tough, but good decision to make!"
Postscript:
"I actually ended up withdrawing the Columbia application. (because) I decided to go to Wharton! I'm super excited and nervous. I'm heading up to Philly this weekend to find an apartment. Can you believe that I have to be on campus August 1st? That is so soon!" — admitted to Wharton, MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Duke

Applicant:
"Avi, I am admitted to NYU Stern! I am absolutely thrilled!! Finally, I am going somewhere after two years of trying. Thank you very much for your profiling editing service and advice on my reapplication. I know I could not have done it without your help. Once again thanks very much and I will keep you posted on other results."— admitted to NYU Stern

Applicant:
"Hey Avi, Just heard back from HBS. Fortunately it was positive ;). Will give it a week or two to sink in but everything points to Boston this fall. Anyways, super thanks for your help - both in coaching and on the essays. Was really helpful and I'm sure it strengthened my odds in the process. Will definitely recommend you to friends applying next year. Again, thanks!" — admitted to HBS.

Applicant:
"t was wonderful to work with you and I recommend you to anyone who asks. When I start, I will have an MIT blog this Fall and will put a link to you as well, to say:
'Avi Gordon has been instrumental when I applied to MIT Sloan School of Management. I got into MIT!! I also later got accepted into Wharton, Hopkins, and other top schools!n Avi helped develop my personal narrative and as I am already a physician and working professional, I can tell you his advice and approach was STILL invaluable. I bought the whole package and it was the best $$ I ever spent! I start at Sloan this Summer and I cannot wait.'" — admitted to MIT Sloan, Wharton, John Hopkins.

Applicant:
Avi, thought I would close the loop and let you know that I was admitted to the Yale SOM program and have decided to attend next fall. I wanted to let you know that I was very impressed with your services. You lived up to expectations with your concise, no holds-barred approach to feedback that was always returned in a timely manner. You drastically helped me increase the quality of my essays both in terms of content and prose, making my overall candidacy much stronger. — admitted to Yale S.O.M.

Applicant:
Just wanted to let you know that all our hard work has paid off. I got accepted to Wharton/Lauder. Very excited to start the program in May. Thanks again for all your hard work, dedication and patience. It has been great working with you, and I am sure it made a huge difference. Who else can you torment with so many re-dos of like 10 essays?! All the best to you!
— admitted to Wharton-Lauder

Applicant:
"Hello Avi, I just wanted to send you a quick update on my plan for business school this fall. As you know, I applied to the [withheld] round at Tuck. I was accepted and have decided to attend! I couldn't be more excited about going back to Dartmouth and am looking forward to my two years at business school. Thank you so much for all of your guidance during the business school process. I truly appreciated your insights." — admitted to Tuck-Dartmouth, Cornell-Johnson, Georgetown-McDonough

Applicant:
"I wanted to share this great news with you. I've been accepted to IESE Business school!! I just got the acceptance mail today. I wanted to thank you for all the help and support that you gave me during the application process. I can definitely say that without your expert guidance in the application, I could not have achieved this. So thank you so much. Please give me a call if you are in the NYC area as i definitely owe you a drink!!" — admitted to IESE and NUS

Applicant:
"You are splendid, magnificent, excellent! I cannot find the proper word to express how much I appreciate your valuable help to me. You are so good! I have updated based on ALL your suggestions... Hey, you can really make a difference. Very strong leadership ;) ...Your advice is my MBA bible! I think you really have the sharp eye for MBA applications. I really appreciate your valuable points. You are a really great mentor on my MBA applications.... Thank you once again for your great help! Thank you thank you thank you!." — (amalgam of emails from one client) admitted to Wharton.

Applicant:
"I'm in Wharton, but hey it's not finished yet. I still need to write two essays to apply for scholarships. Can you believe that?? Another two essays! I'm dying :P Will keep you updated.... btw yesterday I received the offer from NYU Stern - perhaps the last offer. Just cannot thank you enough for your great work!" — admitted to Wharton, Chicago GSB, Columbia, and NYU Stern

Applicant:
"Avi, Good news: I am accepted at HBS!! Thanks a lot for your support. I did not make it to Stanford though (but does not really matter now!). Enjoy the holidays." — admitted to HBS.

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, I just wanted to let you know that my application to MIT was success. Your guidance helped me move through the application processes quickly and confidently. I'm very thankful for your help and I'm looking forward to starting at Sloan!" — admitted to MIT Sloan

Applicant:
"Avi - Words can't express how grateful I am. I just got accepted to Stern!!!!
You made the difference between sending in average essays and great essays. Your comments were on point and kept me focused. I'd recommend you to anyone. Thank you, again." — admitted to NYU Stern

Applicant:
"Avi, I wanted to let you know that I recieved an offer for LBS's EMBA. Thank you for all your help and advice on the Essay's as well as the Resume, it help me polish my application, focus my essays and taylor my resume towards business school and LBS. I also appreciated the flexibility in MBA Studio's services which allowed me to target specifically the areas where I needed advice." — admitted to LBS EMBA.

Applicant:
[Oct 13] "Hi Avi, Just wanted to let you know that I have just got invited to interview with Columbia! This is really fast, my app has only been under review for a couple of days...I just wanted to thank you for your help! Will keep you posted. Thanks!"
[Nov 10] "Just got a call from Columbia informing me that I got admitted! Again, thanks a lot for your help." — admitted to Columbia.

Applicant:
"I actually received my acceptance letter to the master’s program at the Cornell School last Wednesday! I am thrilled to have been accepted. I actually started my online pre-courses this afternoon. I have never been more excited to start school! I just wanted to thank you again for all of your help during this stressful experience. Your insight and guidance were invaluable and I attribute my acceptance to your help." — admitted to Cornell.

Applicant:
"I am glad that I chose the right service to guide me through the application process. With [your] help, I completed my applications with confidence and enthusiasm. It has been a challenging, yet rewarding experience!" — admitted to Kellogg.

More Client Feedback

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, Got the great news this morning--HBS called me to tell me I was accepted. Thanks for all of your help throughout the process! The waitlist was nerve-wracking, but at the end of the day, I am happy as can be with the final result." — admitted to HBS

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, I am sorry I just didn't update you after you had helped me with INSEAD Exec Essays! I have been busy ever since and a lot lot has happened in between…Thanks to you I had got a interview call, and thereafter earned final admission offer for Abu Dhabhi Campus." — Admitted to INSEAD EMBA

Applicant:
"I just wanted to thank you for your help. You might not remember me in your sea of clients, but I sure do remember and appreciate your help. I got admitted into Haas and class actually starts tomorrow. I couldn't have done it without you. After listening to the speeches during orientation, I'm almost positive that the profile you chose to emphasize was what got me in. You completely hit the jackpot. I can't thank you enough, especially considering I couldn't have gotten it all done in 8 days without your help."— admitted to Haas Berkeley.

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, Admitted to INSEAD! Another success for your records!
Now, the issue is, I also got a [job] offer. If you have a couple of minutes I would appreciate to get your first thought about that.
It's gonna be a very difficult situation to handle. Thanks."
— admitted to INSEAD and IESE

Applicant:
"Avi, I was accepted to Columbia today after yesterday's phone conversation with the director of the Healthcare program. Thank you so much for all the push and all the suggestions." — admitted to Columbia

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, How are you doing? I received an email today from HKUST, they informed that I have been successful in my application and they will send out an offer letter in the next few weeks. I can not express my joy at the moment and I want to thank you so much for all your help and guidance throughout the selection process, especially since I was so last minute. I have already referred you to my brother-in-law who has expressed a desire to undertake an EMBA for the following year. I know he will learn a lot from you. Thanks again for everything."— admitted to HKUST.

Applicant:
"Hello Avi, I wanted to update you ... I was admitted at Oxford! Thank you very much for your help, I wouldn't have made it without you! I am very satisfied, the school will open me a lot of opportunities :) Thanks again for your key contribution." — admitted to Saïd Oxford

Applicant:
"I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I've been accepted at ESSEC's MBA in Luxury Brand Management! I got the call from Paris last week, after flying there for my interview last month. It was quite an experience, but I got through it and they have given me a place. Term starts in Sept, so I will be off to Paris end August. I'm ecstatic with the news and have lots of planning to do. But I just wanted to thank you for your help in my application. It was great working with you." — admitted to ESSEC.

Applicant:
"I just wanted to let you know that I was offered admission to Cornell and [my husband] to Columbia so we are both very happy that we got in and of course that we'll be starting school in the fall. Thanks again for helping us."— admitted to Cornell and Columbia.

Applicant:
"Hello Avi, I just got admitted to the Kellogg MBA program. I just wanted to thank you for your time and effort in polishing my essays. I will be sure to leave a testimonial on your website."— admitted to Kellogg.

Applicant:
"I have got some great news. I have been admitted at IESE! You were a great help on this. Really, you and and your book were of huge help! So, thanks again." — admitted to IESE.

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, Thanks a ton for all your guidance during this whole process! You're the best coach [I] could've hoped for." —admitted to Oxford

Applicant:
"How's it going? I've been meaning to update you on my application. I was accepted without an interview for the January term at Columbia. I am now finishing most of my medical requirements and will begin the business school in January. Thanks for helping me with the essays. They must have been big b/c I was accepted about 3 weeks after submitting." — admitted to Columbia.

Applicant:
"Avi - I am very thankful to you for your help during the essay writing process. It was fun to work with you and even though I did not get into Wharton, I got into Berkeley which is awesome. Your straight forwardness and the interview prep were the two signature components of your services that I feel helped me shape my story and my interviews. Thanks again." — admitted to Haas Berkeley and Ross Michigan.

Applicant:
"Hi Avi, Just wanted to let you know, I have been admitted to the McCombs MBA at DFW. I wanted to write to you and thank you for all the advice and the adcom perspective I learned from you. Your help with the 3 essays and the recommendation letters were top notch and I believe they were the key differentiators, helping me to get into the program, especially the 3rd essay where I had to explain reasons around my past academic mistakes. Thank you again for all you did for me, I hope this MBA program will be a great step ahead for my career!" — admitted to McCombs.

Applicant:
Hey Avi – I wanted to let you know that I was accepted into Columbia. Thanks for your feedback and comments throughout the process, they were very helpful." — admitted to Columbia.

Applicant:
"Hi, Sorry for the delay in the response, I took some time off my essays. Actually, I hired [competitor service - name withheld by MBA Studio] and I thought they were really bad. So I tried your free trial offer to help me benefit from a basis to establish my judgment towards them. Your feedback was so appreciated that I negotiated with them to get reimbursed, which I did in part. My Harvard and INSEAD packages are with them (could not be reimbursed) but let's get started with my other essays." — Montreal, Canada.

Welcome to The MBA Admissions Studio, an elite business school admission support service for MBA applicants. Having done this since 2002, let's simply say there are NO tricks, short cuts, or secret handshakes for getting into a good b-school. Only one thing works: a compelling statement of your worth as a candidate. Here are the tools to develop and present your competitive value.

AIGAC MEMBERSHIP

Avi Gordon, Director of the MBA Admissions Studio, is accredited by the Assoc. of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), the oversight and credentialing body in the graduate admissions field, and practices according to the standards and ethics of the association.